1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless image transfer system and a wireless image transfer method for transferring a medical image.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a medical observation apparatus, such as an endoscope and a surgical microscope, configured to observe an operation region in a medical action, such as a surgery, is widely used. A surgery using the medical observation apparatus is also frequently performed, such as an endoscopic surgery in which an endoscope is inserted into a body cavity like an abdominal cavity or a thoracic cavity, from a small fistula opened on a body surface of a patient, and an organ in the body cavity is treated under the endoscopic observation. An example of an advantage of the endoscopic surgery includes reduced invasion to the patient.
The surgical image observation apparatus includes an image pickup device, and the image pickup device allows picking up an observed image in the body cavity of the patient. The observed image obtained by picking up the image can be outputted to a monitor or recorded, and people involved in the surgery, such as an operator, an assistant, and a nurse, can share the image.
A medical image from the medical observation apparatus can be supplied to a plurality of monitors in an operating room. The operator can observe the medical image through a monitor that is easy to view according to a standing position. In consideration of a degree of freedom of the installation of the monitors, wireless transfer is recently utilized in some cases for the transfer of the medical image from the medical observation apparatus to the monitors. For example, to reduce influence of interference, wireless transfer with a communication band of a 60 GHz band that is not generally used is adopted for medical use in some cases.
However, an antenna with a high directivity is generally adopted in a wireless device that uses a radio wave of the 60 GHz band, and a straightness of the radio wave is also strong. Therefore, receiver sensitivity may be degraded, and forward data may be missed, depending on the standing position of the operator, a direction of the monitor, an obstacle of transfer existing in the operating room, movement of a person, and the like.
In regard to the deterioration of reception, a transmission and reception apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2012-186701 (hereinafter, called Literature 1), wherein communication with a communication band of a 60 GHz band and communication with a communication band of a 5 GHz band are adopted, a communication band to be preferentially used is set, and which one of the communication bands is to be selected can be switched according to a reception state.